


When it hurts too much to be Anything Else

by RoughledFeathers



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 11:32:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4433918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoughledFeathers/pseuds/RoughledFeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back . . . then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.” <br/>― Sarah Cross, Kill Me Softly</p>
            </blockquote>





	When it hurts too much to be Anything Else

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is more or less based on my feelings. It may be a bit ooc for Souji, but this is him inheriting my traits a bit?  
> It was written quickly, one draft, so it's lower quality than what I'd normally post. Sorry for that.

     Being the son of a company manager has its definite perks. In one of the smaller towns, it meant family recognition that even saved my neck from a ticket or two. It always meant being financially able to live in the better off areas of town. IT had its perks, for sure, but it also had its downfalls. Namely, it meant moving and moving frequently. For the most part I didn’t mind it all that much; I understood it came with the territory of being a higher up. It was easy for me to grin and bear it; it was easy to identify relocation as simply a factor that required adaptation. Adaptation quickly became an easy feat.

     We didn’t have to move for a long time, in the beginning. The place in which I was born was also the place I spent a lot of my life. My father had remained in the same company, in the same location. I stayed in that suburban town until the first year of junior high. That was when the relocation began. Suddenly after that initial move, my family was moving around every other year, never sticking around one place for too long.

     Though I always went about moving with little complaint, it had set up a flaw in my design. See, while adaptation was always easy for me, communication was not. Even in my hometown I had found socializing difficult; I spent my first school years contently keeping to myself. People are curious beings, and their curiosity always leads to prying; prying made me uncomfortable. Letting people in, letting people see inside my walls was a terrifying concept.

     Eventually, though, I had found myself among a very small group of friends. I got close to a few of them over the years, becoming best friends with one particular friend. Then I moved, and that friend group faded out of existence. Keeping in touch proved too much effort on both sides, so I moved on. After that I found it increasingly difficult to become close to people with each move. I’d have fewer friends with each town, fewer acquaintances, and fewer connections to have to break. It was never worth the effort of prying my walls open to let people in anyway, by the time I got to know someone, I was packing boxes again.

          -x-

     This time, when my parents moved, it was overseas. They determined it best to leave me here, and sent me to live with my uncle and his daughter. I didn’t mind, and as always, I grinned and bore it. It would only be for a year, they’d said, so I packed lightly. I hadn’t seen my uncle since I was young, and had never met my cousin. They were kind, and my uncle kept a respectful sort of distance that I appreciated. His daughter, Nanako, was more interested in learning about me, but it wasn’t very hard to share the basics with her.

     I met a few classmates that quickly decided they wanted to befriend the new kid. I didn’t ever say much, but they didn’t seem to mind. Everyone else regarded me with a sort of fascination; treating me like some sort of enigma because I kept to myself and avoided attention. I ignored them, and though the whispers never completely ended, I was alright with that.

     Among the few people I had met was Yosuke Hanamura, and among the few friends I made, he was the most eager to get to know me. At first it unnerved me as it always did, but eventually as I got to know him better I felt better opening up to him as well. He was quick to call me his best friend, and I was quick to do the same. It was the first time I’ve ever genuinely surprised myself with my own actions. But Yosuke, I could tell from early on, was different. He was special; someone I could easily let in.

     Over the course of the year I spent in the small town of Inaba Yosuke and I only got closer. I’d stay at his place for days at a time, watching movies, wrestling, whatever. It didn’t really matter what we did, we just enjoyed hanging out together. Nearing the end of my stay, I realized I had, at some point, fallen in love with Yosuke. Not just a crush, though, that would have been too easy, no, I had completely fallen for my best friend. And I was supposed to get on a train to leave in a week.

     The night I had decided to tell him, we were at my uncle’s house, in my loaned room. We were watching a terrible reality show, laughing at the stupidity, until it was early morning. Sleepy and happy, I turned to Yosuke and decided there wouldn’t be a better time. Before I could voice the words, though, Yosuke spoke up first.

     He told me he was so glad we’d met. He thanked me for hanging around him as much as I did, as if it had ever been an inconvenience to me. Then he said the words that tore my world apart. He thought of me as his brother. He _loved_ me as his unofficial brother. And I laughed. I laughed, and hugged him as a brother would, and told him it wasn’t a problem. That he was the best brother a guy could ask for. We went to sleep shortly after, him on the couch, me on my bed. I couldn’t find sleep, though, whenever I tried I heard the words echo in my head. _Love, brother, love, brother._

          -x-

     Yosuke cried the day I got on the train. He cried and hugged me and said he was going to jump in the train with me. Basically, he was being himself, over dramatic and endearing and perfect. In the end, I got disentangled from him and hugged everyone else who had decided to see me off. I shook my uncle’s hand, and kneeled to hug Nanako, who sobbed. Finally on the train, I sighed deeply and pulled a book to read. It would be some time before I reached my destination, and jumped when my phone vibrated. It was Yosuke. He texted me through the entire ride, breaking my resolve to forget my feelings with every word. But I couldn’t tell him; I couldn’t ruin his idea of our perfect best friendship. So I kept silent. I curled up in the seat and hid my face in my knees, vehemently ignoring the way the material was getting damp. I could handle just friends. Just brothers. I could handle it.

          -x-

     Eventually I admitted my feelings to both Yukiko and Chie on different occasions. Neither were very surprised to hear it, and they both expressed strong sympathy for me. They had had their fair share of pining, though things worked out better for them, as they were now on their second year of dating. It ended up being fortunate that I’d told them, as it was Chie that had to tell me Yosuke had started dating someone. They both called and talked over night with me, but neither said anything when small embodiments of my hurt fell onto my desk and stained my cheeks an angry red.

     It wasn’t until a week later that I brought it up with Yosuke, casually asking about her. It was someone he’d mentioned before, an old friend of his. I told him I was happy for him, thankful we were texting, as I cried again into my pillow between replies. I had never been one to cry very much, so crying so often recently had drained me. I kept my usual persona up for Yosuke though. I couldn’t let him know. I could never let him know. He was happy with this girl. Very happy, obviously, and she had known him longer than I had. She had the right to date him.

          -x-

     A year after they’d started dating, Yosuke and I were Skype calling as we often did, and he smiled deviously, telling me he knew she was the one. Ecstatic, he asked if I would, when the time came, be his best man. What else could I say than yes? We were best friends after all, and I was supposed to be his unofficial brother. He proposed a couple months later. She said yes.

          -x-

     The day of the wedding was hell. I kept up appearances, of course. Adapting was always my strong point, wasn’t it? I read my short speech clearly, and Yosuke unsurprisingly cried and hugged me not a minute after I uttered the last word of it. I laughed and pushed him off, causing him to laugh with me. Chie and Yukiko were regarding me with clear concern, and at least one of the two hovered near through the entire reception.

     They tried to convince me not to drink as much as I did, but I was heartbroken, and neither said any I told you so’s when I found myself in the bathroom an hour later ridding my system of everything. Chie snuck into the men’s restroom with me, locked the door, and patted my back and I heaved. I felt like hell, inside and out, and I just wanted the night to be over. Chie helped me stumble over to the sink, and after I rinsed my mouth out, held me when I fell to the floor and cried again.

     She didn’t try to say she understood; she knew she didn’t. She’d been in love once and it worked out. She didn’t, and I thank God for it, have to know the agony of loving someone with your whole heart and watch them love someone else.

     Yosuke and I stayed close. We always stayed close. He eventually found out about my feelings from Chie, or maybe Yukiko, and told me it was alright. He told me it didn’t change his brotherly love for me. He told me he knew I’d end up with someone great, someone I deserved. I just laughed, and left the earliest I could.

     I never found that someone, because it was always him. And he was someone else’s.


End file.
